Sunday, September 1, 2013

Constructor: John Farmer

Relative difficulty: Challenging

THEME: "Persons of Note" — rebus puzzle where theme squares read as a number in one direction and a name in the other—number is a denomination of U.S. paper currency, and the name is the person appearing on said currency. Jokey revealer: "DON'T TAKE ANY OF / IT AT FACE VALUE" (31D: With 33-Down, Skeptic's advice ... or a "noteworthy" hint to seven Across answers in this puzzle). Also, my wife just informed me that the black squares toward the middle of the grid form a "$"—Nice!

Following the end of the silent movie era, Elmo left Hollywood and tried his hand at mining. In the late 1930s, he returned to the film industry, most often employed as an extra. He appeared, uncredited, in two Tarzan films in the 1940s—as a circus roustabout in Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942), and as a fisherman repairing his net in Tarzan's Magic Fountain(1949).

His final work saw him also playing a brief, uncredited role in Carrie, starring Laurence Olivier. According to Tarzan of the Movies, by Gabe Essoe, Lincoln was quite proud of his work in this film, as he was an admirer of Olivier.

This puzzle was very entertaining and hilariously difficult. I say "hilariously" both because of the enormous number of proper nouns (and other stuff) that were totally unknown to me, as well as the proper nouns (and other stuff) that I knew, but that I also knew many many many people would not know. The arrival of MTV (discovered by me in 1982) was such a momentous occasion in my life that I know the name of every band that was on heavy (or even light) rotation on the network from about 1982 to 1985. That channel introduced me to music I never would've heard of in my Top 40-dominated little (actually pretty big) town (actually city). This is all to say that I owned a HAIRCUT 100 album back in the day. Owned it. An album. I have no idea how you would know this band if you are a. an American and b. did not watch MTV in the early '80s. They did have a couple of minor hits, but ... wow. I laughed Out Loud when I wrote them in. And I thought MATCHBOX 20 (earlier in my solve) had been tough to uncover—their clue was beyond useless, but at least that group was a. very popular and b. made music in recent memory. HAIRCUT 100!? Oh, man. I would love this puzzle for that answer alone. Thankfully, there are many more reasons.

But first, here's HAIRCUT 100's big hit, "Love Plus Washington":

The gimmick here, as well as the revealer, was really wonderful. I like that the Sundays appear (lately) to be getting tougher. They've had a tendency to be kind of tedious. I mean, just fine, but long. I feel like Sundays need to be very funny/clever and/or need to have these added levels or layers to them in order for them not to feel like a slog. This puzzle had obscurities in it, yes, but I think they were all work-outable, and the puzzle had so much ridiculous weird attitude that I couldn't help but love it. I mean, I have Never heard the phrase HIT IT FAT, but how am I supposed to knock it? It's too awesomely colloquial for me to do anything but just tip my hat, hold the door, and say "after you, sir."

I spent a lot of early energy just eating up answers where I could, with no real idea about the theme. I thought 1A Star of four Spike Lee films should be DENZEL, but he didn't fit. I thought it was DENZELL for a bit, but didn't like that at all, since nothing in the clue was cuing "first name only." Eventually I cornered that 1/Washington square, and the theme was apparent. But even then, the puzzle was still Tough. So you've got two toughness layers—picking up the theme, and then just solving the damned thing. Lots of places to get bogged down if not outright stuck. But all good fun.

102
comments:

Dig the trick at 1A/7D, so I'm cruising right along, enjoying the gimmick, some devious cluing (esp., Webster's second?), and smile-inducing, snappy answers (eg., CHIME IN, HAREMS, HIT IT FAT, ARC (well known to a GUNNER), REEFER, ROOMER, WON). I'm on course for a near-record Sunday finish when ... I splat, like Wile E. Coyote, face first into the wall that was 42, 43 and 44D.

I love question mark clues. Belay my last. I usually love question mark clues. Upon the "aha" moments enjoyed when I *finally* bumbled, stumbled and fumbled my way through 42 and 44D, I must say I love those two clues. But, Man, Oh, Manischewitz(!) was I thwarted by them AND the ... just cruel ... HAIRCUT 100 wedged between them.

Although I had the FL of 62A (Tease), FLIRT simply would not come to the forefront of my grey matter. I had nothing in 78A (Prickly sticker) and ... nothing was coming to mind. I also had nothing at 42A (Electrical unit, old-style) and tried ohm, amp, erg, rho ... all the arguably three-letter electrically related ... stuff ... I could think of and ... NUTHIN'!!!

I'm an '70's-'80's music guy. The BritProg of my college years is both wide-ranging and well-loved to this day. The Smiths, Cure, Psychedelic Furs, Sex Pistols, Big Audio Dynamite, Elvis, Joe Jackson, Siouxsie and the Banshees, New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen, Love and Rockets, The Fall, The Pop Group, Spandau Ballet ... I know my '80's UK Pop pretty damned well. And I'd NEVER heard of these clowns before tonight. A li'l post-solve Wiki reveals that they had ONE single that charted in the US, at a high of 37, in 1982. Sheesh!

Closed it out in 29 and change, literally half of which was spent in this tiny nook. Damn you, John Farmer! Damn you straight to hell!!!

That I should see the day that, in the New York Times, the preponderance of theme entries is black men and women. Men and women of grace, dignity and grandeur. Absolutely beautiful.

At first glance, and only at first glance. They are only in there because of their slave names, names given to them by their white overlords, as if naming them after presidents somehow reduced the indignity of their slavery. So, once again, black men and women are denigrated by white society, they are only there because of an historical anomaly. Their slave names.

Malcolm.

We declare our right on this earth...to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.

I did a fast count of the proper names. Fast, which means I might be off by a few numbers. Of 137 clues, 37 had proper noun answers. About 27%, over 1/4 of the answers. Many in this community don't seem to mind this type of puzzle, but for those like me who are not entertained by a plethora of proper nouns, this puzzle was less than entertaining.

Started at the bottom, where the theme clues were pretty easy to get from the down clues. Very cleaver puzzle with the above caveat.

I don't know if the comment above this one (as I write this) will be removed. I only say this: odd conclusion.

Well @Rex....Glad you had a "work-outable" and "after you sir moment." Mine was more MOANING at the HIT IT FAT PHENOMS.I usually like John Farmer but EKING just made me SIC.Way over the top on trivia and pop culture for moi. Saving grace was Red Skelton's "I DOOD it!"

I got hung up in the same place as August West, and for at least 10 minutes, even though I, like Rex, was a keen student of all early MTV bilge in real time and slapped down Haircut 100 easily. "Where does it go from here, is it down to the lake I fear?"

Liked the theme. Picked it up early, whenI recognized something was fishy with LOU? and saw that neither Ice T nor Ice Cube was going to fit at 17D. Got a few downs over in the NW to make it clear that DENZEL was supposed to be there, and then I noticed the giant dollar sign in the middle of the puzzle. Light bulb on, and the theme fell together quickly. (Being of the MTV generation definitely pays off on this one; HAIRCUT100 came quickly as soon as I got the theme. I'm pretty sure I never once heard them on the radio and knew them only from heavy video rotation c. 1982.)

I did not like the parts of the puzzle that weren't involved in the them (well, most of them; I can't complain about a Kurosawa film and, especially, the word REEFER in the grey old lady). As is often the case in a theme-rich puzzle, there's a lot of clunky short fill. But what I especially disliked was a couple things that I expect are Naticks for a great many people: The TAGORE/EGG crossing and AMESLAN/AALARGE. I ended up with a DNF because of those two. I've never heard of/seen AMESLAN (when abbreviated, I've always seen American Sign Language listed as ASL), and AA_ARGE looked like nothing remotely comprehensible. Likewise, since EGG relied on filling out AALARGE to suss from the clues, that square was blank for me as well.

I suppose John Farmer deserves congratulations of sorts for finding the most impossible cluing for EGG ever.

The theme ultimately wins out on this one for me, but it's a close win.

@jae: Newsweek survives online. Hence the answer of EMAG (just one example of the bad short fill I mentioned earlier).

Ameslan is American Sign Language. it is a language used by some hearing-impaired people.

Tagore. Indian poet/philosopher. "On the shores of endless seas, children meet." This line of Tagore's was quoted by the great psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott, which is how I first was introduced to Tagore's work.

"Godel, Escher, Bach" -- formidably brilliant book, engrossing, entertaining, and I prided myself on reading it through even if the concepts were way way beyond me.

Cute puzzle. I think Thursday's puzzle was amazingly brilliant, totally challenging, a work of sheer imagination. This puzzle was medium, not challenging. But fun. Once I got the concept, I was amused at myself for not remembering who was on each bill. I knew Franklin, because of the movie "All About the Benjamins". I don't generally have $100 bills at my fingertips, but I know that they have the image of Benjamin Franklin smack dab in the center.

I guess the stuff Rex knows, I often don't, and stuff I take for granted, Rex is baffled by. I hit quite a number of WTFs that Rex knew, like Matchbox and Haircut.

My brother Knew the HAIRCUT band so with that little bit of help I muddled through!Liked it a lot The EGG made me giggle.I found enough gimmees (or Maybes) to work out the hard bits.That pack of LLAMAS scares the crap out of me however!

AMESLAN has been an obsolete term since the 1960s, so this falls into the bucket of obscure trivia you're unlikely to ever pick up in ordinary life if you're below a certain age. One of my least favorite categories of crossword fill.

The "old-style" bit made the clue for MHO harder—or at least, it threw me off the scent. I think some physics profs still toss out the MHO offhandedly these days, simply because that's the kind of thing that's amusing to a physicist (or maybe that was just my prof).

Overall I thought the theme was cool, and there was some interestingly unusual/hard fill, but the proper names really tried my patience.

Got the theme at LOU (Grant=50), but still consider it another Sunday slog.

For the scientists among us, MHO and GODEL were gimmes. However, I for one spent zero time watching MTV and was completely ost on Brit bands of the whatevers. Had to rely on crosses here and US currency.

Did I like it? No. Do I like Sunday puzzles in general? No. Why do I do Sunday puzzles? TMFT on Saturday nights! Yet, There are usually more interesting facts per square grid, such as that the Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world at 2722 ft -- it is ~twice as tall as the empire state building.

@Steve J -- When I tried to move my 30+ year subscription to Newsweek to their online EMAG version they sent me a refund. My impression is that they are now The Daily Beast, although after some google research, the Newsweek name seems to be part of that site.

Found out we're a dnf on this one when I came here. Had SOYs instead of SOYA. Never seen Acronym AMESLAN which is ASL I guess.

This was challenging for us which generally means we like a puzzle, but not today - just too many obscure (to us) proper nouns - surprised we didn't have more errors. I mean ELMOfreakingLINCOLN? If only John Weismuller had been on the $5 bill.

Clever rebus. Struggled with 1A for quite a while looking for an actress/actor with name ending in "a" to go with aSEC. Gave up and stumbled upon two gimmes (LOUGRANT and 50CENT) that gave us the rebus and opened things up a little.

Don't understand ROOMER - help?

Any young'uns wondering what a torch singer was should utube Lena HORNE singing "Stormy Weather."

Between far too many unknown to me proper nouns and (not having grown up in the US) neither knowing nor caring who is on which dollar bill, I abandoned this one as unnecessary slog, which I never do on Sundays. That was despite figuring out the theme. No way I would have finished without help. I despise puzzles overloaded with proper names.

I agree with Rex about the improved quality of Sunday puzzles recently. I like it when they're both hard and clever. I caught today's theme at LOU 20. Fun gimmick. I somehow worked out HAIRCUT100 but not MATCHBOs20. I'm much too old to have watched MTV -- ever -- over 40 when Rex was grokking MTV. I thought US Steel was just USS.

As an inept golfer who "hits it fat" way more often than I'd like to, that term was depressingly familiar to me. However, because I'd never seen "bur" spelled that way -- never seen it any other way than "burr" -- I couldn't believe bur was correct, hence I couldn't finish that area. Ruined an otherwise interesting solving a experience.

I see from some of the comments that others use magmic app to do the puzzle as well. I am not a fast solver, so I don't know what the best people do for times. But is it possible that people actually finish these puzzles in some of the ridiculously fast times people post on the app? I have always assumed they have some way of cheating, as I cannot even read all of the clues in the times they claim to finish the puzzle.

Agree on the trend of harder Sunday puzzles. This one was tough for me in the middle -- IMOFF -- fans and E-SE -- MEDIABIAS had me stuck, and HAIRCUT 100 took way too long to come to this survivor of the music-videos-on-MTV era.

my only gripe about the writeup was mistakenly pressing the link on my phone screen and jarring my companions with a blast of "Rich Girl." . Couldn't it at least have been "Sara Smile"?

Another puzzle with an eye focused on generating the backslaps and huzzahs of fellow constructors.

As happens all too often with such concoctions, it will receive their oohs and aahs, but the quality of the fill is so painfully forced to accommodate the gimmick that the end users, the solvers, are the losers who must contend with impossible obscurities like AMESLAN and HAIRCUT100.

@8:55: I am much slower on the magmic. Invariably, my fat fingers hit the wrong letter, or previously entered correct letters are accidentally changed when I advance or switch from vertical to horizontal. Rebus answers really slow me down due to the need to access the entry window via separate tab, and forget it when backwards entries like Thursday's are required. Much, much faster with pen and paper, but I refuse to pay the riduculous newsstand price or subscribe to home delivery of a propagandist rag I otherwise revile.

@Jae Loved your "hitting the big ball first" It really reminds of our place in the cosmos!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Will Shortz for telling us that there were seven Across answers that were "noteworthy". Otherwise I would have gone on a wild goose 10,000 to find other denominations.

@August West, fine list of 80's acts from Britain, but Elvis goes first in the list (he is king, after all).

I didn't realize that an acronym could include more than initials forming a word, so AMESLAN, known to me only as ASL, was beyond my ken. Not realizing that Proust wrote about Hall of Fame wide receivers led to a Naticky DNF for me. Liked the theme fine, but thought the non theme pop culture was excessive.

@Malcolm X - were those "slave names" or were those surnames adopted post slavery by those who hadn't been afforded the dignity of surnames?

Went to bed with middle right blank. I didn't know a band whose name ended "100." I was trying to think of a word for "Tease." When I woke up this morning, TAUNT was on my mind but it didn't work. But I got ALT which led to STADIA which led to MEDIABIAS.

I didn't enjoy it very much although I admired the theme and the dollar sign after Rex pointed it out. But I only found nine unusual entries and six clever clues.

By the way, lots of polygons have 135-degree angles. Regular polygons have eight of them.

For those wondering about how to get the numbers to work in the Magmic iPad app: In the lower right corner of the keyboard, there's a key marked %123. That gives you the numbers. For all of the theme answers other than 1, 2 and 5, you'll need to use the rebus button, too.

Regarding USX: US Steel renamed itself USX Corp. in 1986 when it became a holding company for more than just steel manufacturing (it also owned Marathon Oil). It returned to the US Steel name in the early aughts when they sold off Marathon.

@DBGeezer (from a fellow geezer). I can get this one, at least. The key is "letter," which here means "person who rents" (to or from; in my dialect this kind of "letter" would be only one who lets to, but never mind). So, a renter "with a limited amount of space," or ROOMER.

Got the theme pretty quickly at 50CENT....but after 40:30 challenging minutes, I screwed up on....wait for it...wait for it...EGG. Figured EHG was some sort of scientific thing graded in AALARGE. Right. Shows you how much I haven't been cooking these last couple of years.

@malcolm X, I think many of your people who are "named after presidents" named themselves after being freed, preferring Washington to the names of thie former owners. However, it would be sadly interesting to learn how many of the black people in this puzzle are in fact keeping their slave names--are descended from people actually owned by those presidents (or Franklin, Hamilton and Chase). For those more familiar with obscure rock bands than Nobel Laureates in literature, the latter three were never presidents.

Speaking of obscure rock bands plus sports references, I had to google at the crossing of MATCHBOX20 and BOJACKSON. With the rebus at the intersection it could have been MATCHBOX5000 and BO Madison for all I knew.

I thought it was fun and the non theme fill not overly dumb. And it seems to have been a pangram, thanks to USX. I thought @Rex would complain.

On my way to a big, fat Greek wedding, but just wanted to add my 2¢, so to speak. Very proud that I saw the dollar sign on the grid immediately and along with the puzzle name, I knew more or less what was going on from the start.

Agree with @Rex, that although I got HAIRCUT 100 immediately, I knew that it would stump a good many.

Like others I was tripped up in the AMESLAN area, and the BUR area - totally lost for awhile.

Funny misstep early on: knowing there was a money theme, I thought the movie septet was going to be MAGNIFI and then the CENT ¢ was going to show up another way...

@Rob C - Hanging ten is when the surfer positions the surfboard in such a way that the back of it is covered by the wave and the wave rider is free to walk to the front of the board and hang all ten toes over the nose of the board

@robC:In surfing, "hanging ten" is hanging all ten toes off the side of the board.@August West:Nice to see The Fall and the Pop Group.@Ellen:Why can't a person know both obscure rock bands AND Nobel laureates?

A DNF @ TAMi/iTF, which I corrected easily (D'oh!) once I knew it was wrong. But, overall, Wow.

Got the theme early at LOU 50/GRANT CENT, which made me go back and change A SEC (5A) to 1 SEC, which gave me 1A. Had trouble in the N early, though, with DWARVES @ 19A and, unaccountably, SEASONS @ 22A. Prefer Vivaldi to Holst but that was ridiculous.

Miscellaneous areas of difficulty and WTFs (HAIRCUT FRANKLIN, AMESLAN) all over the map but worth it in the end.

@Anonymous 8:55 I've always suspected cheating on the parts of those MagMic users with the insanely low scores. A little research showed me that it is possible to have separate MagMic accounts. One could solve the puzzle in ones own time, log on with a different account and simply fill in the answers from memory. I have inadvertently cleared puzzles in the past and have been surprised how quickly I have been able to fill them in again.

I don't know that these solvers do this put it is at least a possibility.

This one took me half as long again as usual for a Sunday for me and the proper nouns had me burning up google.

Tried to make 50CENT be Ice-T but failed. I tried Roman numerals for a while but AGE2 wouldn't work without a rebus. ELMO5 finally tipped the 1c over the edge and the other six fell in line.

I guess I enjoyed this. At least I feel like I accomplished something, not sure what, but something!

Blue Stater has it right: according to the OED, a "letter" is someone who allows another to use his/her property for hire. A roomer might be a lettee (by analogy to lessor/lessee) or a subletter of one's own room, but never a letter.

Did anyone else have Across Lite problems with getting a wrong mark on the numerical answers that were single digit? All the two digit numerical answers (and the one three digit numerical answer) were marked correct but the answers: 1,2,5, are marked wrong!

I have to agree with @Rex that even though I got the theme quickly with DENZEL(WASHINGTON/1) and LOU(GRANT/5)the puzzle was in no way easy -- a huge plus on a Sunday. And come to think of it, if Sunday's difficulty equates to a Thursday level puzzle, this one was still easier than Thursday's brilliant creation. I say bring on more puzzles just like these!

I got it all but DNF because I wouldn't give up MATCHplay even when I changed Nepal as I wrote in VIRTUOSO. I knew this is where I'd find the 7th rebus but USX??? BO(JACKSON/20)done DOOD me in.

I loved the challenge of this Sunday puzzle, just like last weeks. I actually had EKG for EGG and "SO I" instead of "AS I". For 116 down, which led me to "AS LARGE" for 115 across(???) and TOURIST for 120 across for the clue "White Russian" which I thought was pretty clever! Live it when I can laugh at myself! HIT IT FAT completely threw me and gave me trouble in that whole area because I didn't know any of those long down answers. Other than that I was proud of slugging through this one.

yesterday is was surprised you didnt know what "NCO" was. Now, you admit you scarcely knew of the "Argonne" Forest (BIG! in WWI). As an old guy (78) who therefore had to do military service I knew NCO right off (it is also in lots of puzzles), and "Argonne" was equally simple for me. But like most people older then, say, 55, I have trouble with all the pop culture trivia that clutters up puzzles--and that young dudes like you snap right up. Jim

I normally skip the Sunday puzzle, but OFL put a tease on facebook yesterday:

"Oh this puzzle (Sun.) is going to eat some people alive. Took me forever. Loaded with ... well, I'll let you do it."

I couldn't resist the challenge, expecting something tough but very special. I didn't find it tougher than a typical Sunday (when I do them), but nothing extra special. The theme was clever and fun to discover, and some of the cluing was clever, and I did enjoy the solve, however, and am grateful for your creation , John!

First comment ever on this terrific blog. Not only does Rex provide answers and background on them when needed, he makes me laugh doing it.

Two things: did NO ONE not at least tentatively, peeking through fingers, wonder early on if 53D was not HANDRUB but HAND, uh, SORT of rub (blush)? I couldn't make myself believe it enough to enter, of course. Tell me I'm the only one here with the dirty mind.

Second, what's with all the carping? A puzzle is SUPPOSED to be hard. Unfair? Only if a clue is demonstably incorrect which really never happens. I can not remember EVER thinking a clue or puzzle didn't play fair. Obscure baseball names are easy for me; obscure Shakespeare quotes, not so much. That's the breaks.

Anyway, thanks Rex for a most entertaining way to end my puzzle day, whether I ace it or dnf.

Well, at least I am glad it was called "challenging." For me it impossible and unpleasant. Bad enough to include key answers like Matchbook and Haircut which are obscure even to many who listen to rock. ( I don't). But there is simply no excuse for cluing "alt" with "___-rock." There are plenty of "alt" ways to clue that, for non-rocksters, who were certainly struggling to get a haircut. I didn't know Tama Janowitz, and had Tami, thought only of the verb form of tease and so never considered "flirt," and so had a most unpleasant DNF, first in several weeks. I got the theme almost immediately, but the fill was unbalanced. No fun for me at all. I give it a C-, passing only for the cleverness of the theme. Ugh.

Well forunately my husband is a music geek, so interestingly, once I go the theme and "Franklin" all I had to say to him was "Is there a British band from the '80s with 100 in their name?" and he told me.

I can see where people who don't live with my husband would have trouble with that on. Also, frankly, american sign language is ASL usually, not Ameslan. At least when I was sudying it at school.

Otherwise, fun afternoon at the beach for me! Cause...these things take me an afternoon.

I loved this! So cute and clever. Kudos to John Farmer! And thanks to @Rex for the interesting write-up, videos, and the "BizarroRex joke" about leaving out the $10,000 bill!

Somehow I was able to finish this puzzle (lots of guessing/re-writing) in spite of the fact that I did not recognize two of the theme answers [ELMO (Lincoln) and HAIRCUT (100)]. I did at least recognize the name of the band MATCHBOX 20 but I could not tell you anything about them.

On the other hand, I know who Rabindranath TAGORE is (perhaps not surprising for someone who goes by "ahimsa") and that the Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world) is in DUBAI.

Anyway, as soon as I figured out the theme I wrote a list currency values, with the names next to each number, so I could keep track of which ones were left. The funny thing is I wrote "Benjamin" (first name, not last) next to 100! I did not notice my error until I got to ARETHA and realized there was no FRANKLIN on my list! :-)

Oh, and I completely left out 2/JEFFERSON when I made the list. So I thought I was done with theme entries until I got to GEORGE in the SE corner so it felt like a bonus.

AMESLAN was the only really ugly fill that stood out during the solve. But for me the puzzle was well worth it.

My guess is that instead of "checking" their results when they finish filling in the answers these people back out of the puzzle and restart it again. They can then race through the puzzle and fill in the answers and receive a high (albeit by cheating) score.

@retired_chemist, I meant "funny" in the sense of "one of these things is not like the other ..." I never noticed that I wrote the down last names for every bill *except* that one (didn't write George or Abe, for example). I wrote down Benjamin without even noticing that it didn't match the rest of the list.

My point is that I sometimes have trouble staying on track and paying attention to det... Oooh, what's that? Shiny! :-)

Clever theme, but absurd fill, best described by Dean at 3:54 and Oisk at 5:33. Did not finish, but no surprise since I do not google. Surprised others did not find the "unevenness" of the fill more objectionable.

Haircut 100 (a band, it turns out, that still exists- reunited in 2009 and still together) was a new one on me. Had trouble with "media bias" because I put "bar" rather than "ear" for "Bud's place." Knew of the band "Matchbox 20" (forgettable '90s band) but did not know that they had a "comeback hit" in 2002 co-written with the front man for my favorite rock band of all time. I knew who Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali polymath who well deserved the Nobel he received) was and have even read some of his stuff (in translation, of course) and is probably the greatest Indian man of letters of the modern era, so that wasn't hard for me. "Ameslan" as an acronym for American Sign Language (usually abbreviated as ASL) was ridiculously obscure.

Finished pretty fast, only write-over was "Argonne" instead of "Ardenne". Saw the dollar sign in the grid and the "note" in the title, so had a good idea what I was looking for in the theme. Had "Ardenne" for "Argonne" as only write-over. Knew Haircut 100 from college days. I don't really get a lot of the complaining or praise here from you commenters - if you know something, you think its a good puzzle; if it's not in your wheelhouse, you think its bad.... and I can't believe you google answers. WTF? I guess that's fine, so long as you don't claim to have actually finished the puzzle. The only time I have real objections to the puzzles are when extremely esoteric crosses make it pure guesswork to finish. Not fair. I don't mind tricky cluing, but crossing an obscure 1920's musician and uncommon technical jargon is not good puzzle construction. Just my .02 dollars. I don't think that I'll comment again...

Finished pretty fast, only write-over was "Argonne" instead of "Ardenne". Saw the dollar sign in the grid and the "note" in the title, so had a good idea what I was looking for in the theme. Knew Haircut 100 from college days. I don't really get a lot of the complaining or praise here from you commenters - if you know something, you think its a good puzzle; if it's not in your wheelhouse, you think its bad.... and I can't believe you google answers. WTF? I guess that's fine, so long as you don't claim to have actually finished the puzzle. The only time I have real objections to the puzzles are when extremely esoteric crosses make it pure guesswork to finish. Not fair. I don't mind tricky cluing, but crossing an obscure 1920's musician and uncommon technical jargon is not good puzzle construction. Just my .02 dollars. I don't think that I'll comment again...

At first, I was at a disadvantage on this puzzle, as a Canuck who doesn't know the personages on the legal tender. However, just knowing a smattering of president's name helped a lot. Overall, I found the cluing excellent, and in many instances the crosses enabled some wtf's to be unearthed: TAGORE, HAIRCUT100(?), MATCHBOX20. Got the rebus at the LOUgrant/50CENT cross (fitty cent), and enjoyed the process of discovering the others, the last of which was the HAIRCUT100. That whole East area was really tough, and it was an aha moment to get MEDIABIAS. For once, I completely agree with Rex on this one. Great puzzle!

For me as for many, this was a Tale of Two Puzzles. Frowned at the extra square after DENZEL for about ONE second before I caught Mr. Farmer's drift. I think it immensely clever.

Though the center down "instructions" took a little longer to unravel, this, too, fell without too much of a fight.

And then there was the entire E/SE. It didn't help that I failed to notice the theme entry in the SE corner, writing ["the terrible"]TWOS confidently at 113d. Everybody's familiar with that saying; I recall kids (and grand) of my own with that affliction. As if that didn't hold me up enough, I just had a bear of a time getting any headway in that area. Had _____BIAS and no clue for the first part. What "story?" Eventually I decided to guess TACO for the all-Hispanic clue at 69a, and tried FLIRT, which led to MEDIABIAS, the tricky ORATORY, and last. letter by letter: HAIRCUT100. This has to take first prize for UBER-obscurity, and together with EKING marred an otherwise great experience and wonderful puzzle.

I did finish it, though, and that persuades me to give it a double thumbs-up. "Letter" as one who lets: a varsity clue. Bench-warmers need not apply; this game's for the starters...and that's a perfect sentiment for the kickoff of the new NFL season. GO E! A! G! L! E! S! EAGLES!

DNF; did not care to. Too many people I had no idea who they were; as someone noted above, it would have been a google fill, which defeats the point.

Never really got the rebus although one of the first things I got was LOUx and xCENT; just didn't tie "grant" to "fifty". Didn't really matter for most, as they were in corners. But, it was some of the other obtuse material in the middle that made it a total drag for me. Just got tired of having to hammer out crosses for people I didn't know.

I couldn't quite bring this one home - I caught onto the theme, I know the images (they're not all presidents) on the currencies, but HAIRCUT100 did me in. The whole mid-Atlantic north of TACO remained blank, so DNF big-time.

One of the clues for this puzzle would have been a big help to me yesterday (and today, too) as I worked on the Saturday puzzle in prime-time. I won't say which one, but syndie-solvers will wish they could remember it when they solve the puzzle five weeks from yesterday.

Like @Diri, DNF in the mid-East because I threw down oHm and wouldn't change.

Caught on to the theme at ELMO5 and loved this puzzle enough to explain to my wife what it was and the clever, funny use of the denomination and president in the theme. She looked at me funny.

Hofstadter's "Godel Escher Bach," is one of the most brilliant literary works I've read. Maybe the most. If you haven't read it, do yourself a favor and tackle it. Also, go to the RPI website and see the Youtube of the Escher staircase they did there. You will not believe it.

Would have posted earlier but I played this morning then watched the 'Hawks squeeze by Carolina.